| Sumario: | The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History represents an invaluable tool for historians and others in the field of African studies. This collection of essays, produced by some of the finest scholars currently working in the field, provides the latest insights into, and interpretations of, the history of Africa - a continent with a rich and complex past. An understanding of this past is essential to gain perspective on Africa's current challenges, and this accessible and comprehensive volume will allow readers to explore various aspects - political, economic, social, and cultural - of the continent's history over the last two hundred years. Since African history first emerged as a serious academic endeavour in the 1950s and 1960s, it has undergone numerous shifts in terms of emphasis and approach, changes brought about by political and economic exigencies and by ideological debates. This multi-faceted Handbook is essential reading for anyone with an interest in those debates, and in Africa and its peoples. While the focus is determinedly historical, anthropology, geography, literary criticism, political science and sociology are all employed in this ground-breaking study of Africa's past. Review: the Handbook will be of major interest to both teachers of African history and the curious general reader. And since most essays include sections on 'future directions' and subjects ripe for further investigations, prospective researchers, too, have reasons to be grateful for the appearance of this timely addition to the Oxford Handbooks series. Giacomo Macola, History Today the volume's essays offer a fascinating panorama of the landscape of African history as it is today: in many ways a vibrant picture of the breadth and subtlety of research. The essays often impress with their grasp of the continent as a whole, and in their coverage of interactions between politics, society, and culture ... an invaluable addition to an outstanding series
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